# Old South racism alive and well in Texas **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [June 9, 2005, 10:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/old-south-racism-alive-and-well-in-texas/307663 "2005-06-09T22:38:46Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 7
**Author:** ![John\_Carter\_of\_Mars](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/2bfe46/32.png) [@John\_Carter\_of\_Mars](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Carter_of_Mars)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2005, 3:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/old-south-racism-alive-and-well-in-texas/307663/121 "2005-06-11T15:05:14Z")
Or **assault** , even. ---
**Author:** ![LouisB](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/dfb087/32.png) [@LouisB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LouisB)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2005, 3:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/old-south-racism-alive-and-well-in-texas/307663/122 "2005-06-11T15:09:49Z")
> [@MaxTheVool](#): > > Trying to get an otherwise reasonable, and personally non-racist, southerner to admit that there’s more racism in the south than in other parts of the country is like pulling Superman’s teeth. As a non-racist person who has lived in eight of the lower forty-eight states, I will NOT concede there is more racism in the south than anywhere else. ---
**Author:** ![you\_with\_the\_face](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/ecccb3/32.png) [@you\_with\_the\_face](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/you_with_the_face)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2005, 3:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/old-south-racism-alive-and-well-in-texas/307663/123 "2005-06-11T15:25:23Z")
This thread is turning out to be one stupid pissing match. That is all. ---
**Author:** ![Odesio](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/odesio/32/20003_2.png) [@Odesio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Odesio)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2005, 8:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/old-south-racism-alive-and-well-in-texas/307663/124 "2005-06-11T20:26:12Z")
> [@Dag Otto](#): > > Just a guess, but might it have something to do with the fucktards who insist on flying the Confederate battle flag? For the most part, you find them in the South. I"m not so sure about that. When Jonesboro, Arkansas had that school shooting I remember many media pundits placing some of the blame on the southern gun culture. I don’t remember any type of gun culture being mentioned when school shootings occured in the Colorado or other places outside the south. Marc ---
**Author:** ![Frostillicus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/e9bcb4/32.png) [@Frostillicus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frostillicus)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2005, 8:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/old-south-racism-alive-and-well-in-texas/307663/125 "2005-06-11T20:32:24Z")
“The black boy was somewhere he shouldn’t have been, although they brought him out there.” Does anyone else have a problem with the sherriff referring to a 42 year old black man as “boy”? This is right out of In the **Heat of the Night** , which showed racist southern life in the 1960s. ---
**Author:** ![Askia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/96bed5/32.png) [@Askia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Askia)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2005, 8:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/old-south-racism-alive-and-well-in-texas/307663/126 "2005-06-11T20:39:11Z")
**boofuu** called him a “kid” – but I’m inclined to believe it was because he didn’t read the link. ---
**Author:** ![andros](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e480ec/32.png) [@andros](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/andros)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2005, 11:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/old-south-racism-alive-and-well-in-texas/307663/127 "2005-06-11T23:43:16Z")
> [@Zoe](#): > > For me it has become a symbol of tackiness. Yup. You’re a southerner. “Tacky” is about the worst insult I know. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![boofuu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/f4b2a3/32.png) [@boofuu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/boofuu)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2005, 7:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/old-south-racism-alive-and-well-in-texas/307663/128 "2005-06-12T07:16:18Z")
> [@Askia](#): > > **boofuu** called him a “kid” – but I’m inclined to believe it was because he didn’t read the link. boofuu = she, although most of friends say I act like a man. 🙂 I did read the link, but funny enough, I come into contact with mentally disabled children and adults, and honestly often think of them as “kids.” Even though I do believe in that the mentally disabled should have input on how they live, I still tend to equate a person with their “mental” age. So, mostly poor choice of words. And partially why I think it was a hate crime motivated at a disabled person and not “a person of color.” And yes, I also think this is mostly a pissing contest of who is more racist. I think Northerners are too quick to blame the South for any and every act of racial violence. Hell, if the racist is in the North, someone will find a way to prove that person was a direct kin of Jefferson Davis or Colonel Sanders or someone. I also think Southerners are automatically defensive when it comes to the subject (and this is borne from constant accusation of racism). But damn, they need to find a way to stay out of the papers for things like this. Very very bad PR. Fact is, racism is bad, most, I hope would agree. Racism ANYWHERE is bad. South, North, China. Blaming the “Old South” or “good ole boys” does nothing to end the problem and only creates division. Really, the war ended long time ago. Does it matter that this crime happened in Texas? (I will admit to getting a funny feeling in my stomach when I driving next to a 4x4 with a confederate flag sticker and a guy with a mullet. Sorry. I am sure he is a great guy, but it just puts me on edge. II should clarify, it’s not the mullet I think those are cool.) ---
**Author:** ![robotic\_panda](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/ed8c4c/32.png) [@robotic\_panda](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robotic_panda)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2005, 11:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/old-south-racism-alive-and-well-in-texas/307663/129 "2005-06-12T11:41:05Z")
> [@Liberal](#): > > Exactly. The famous Eddie Murphy SNL While Like Me skit no doubt drew its inspiration from Yankee bigotry. Really? I thought that was a parody of _Black Like Me_, one of the most famous literary accounts of southern American bigotry. The Eddie Murphy skit was so ludicrous, I don’t see how it can be inspired by “Yankee bigotry”. It was just reversing the plot of _Black Like Me_, turning a black man into a white man to see “how they lived, without us around.” In a ridiculous, humorous way. I’m not sure it was ever meant to be a commentary on black/white relations in the north; if anything its taking the conclusions of the original inspiration (Black Like Me) and putting it into a context familiar for northerners. It is so outrageous, it makes it funny. Well, I found it funny. ---
**Author:** ![Askia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/96bed5/32.png) [@Askia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Askia)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2005, 3:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/old-south-racism-alive-and-well-in-texas/307663/130 "2005-06-12T15:46:03Z")
> [@boofuu](#): > > A few thoughts. Do with them as you will. > > I do not think racism is more prevelant in the South than the North. Really. I think we look for racism there and it gets more attention when found. I don’t look for racism. Honest to God, bigotry and discrimination finds me when I’m minding my own business trying to live my life and do my thing. I’ve lived in South Carolina and Georgia and spent summers in Tennessee and Kentucky; as well as years in Ohio and Michigan. I’ve been targeted by white boys in Flint, Michigan streets for being in the “wrong” neighborhood and been assaulted by white boys in cars while riding my bike in South Carolina and Atlanta. Assholes and racists are everywhere but the fact remains I’ve experienced MOST of my most overt, blatant incidents of racism, prejudices and discrimination in the south: everything from housing to jobs to personal interactions to cops hassling me for no damn good reason. ---
**Author:** ![Liberal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/848f3c/32.png) [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2005, 4:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/old-south-racism-alive-and-well-in-texas/307663/131 "2005-06-12T16:10:29Z")
> [@robotic\_panda](#): > > Really? I thought that was a parody of _Black Like Me_, one of the most famous literary accounts of southern American bigotry. > > The Eddie Murphy skit was so ludicrous, I don’t see how it can be inspired by “Yankee bigotry”. It was just reversing the plot of _Black Like Me_, turning a black man into a white man to see “how they lived, without us around.” In a ridiculous, humorous way. > > I’m not sure it was ever meant to be a commentary on black/white relations in the north; if anything its taking the conclusions of the original inspiration (Black Like Me) and putting it into a context familiar for northerners. It is so outrageous, it makes it funny. > > Well, I found it funny. What I find funny is that Northerners pretend racism is not a familiar context, when it has been around in Yankeedom for a long long time. As one professor at Loyola College puts it: > [@](#): > > The Revised Code of Indiana stated in 1862 that “Negroes and mulattos are not allowed to come into the state”; forbade the consummation of legal contracts with “Negroes and mulattos”; imposed a $500 fine on anyone who employed a black person; forbade interracial marriage; and forbade blacks from testifying in court against white persons. > > Illinois-the “land of Lincoln”-added almost identical restrictions in 1848, as did Oregon in 1857. Most Northern states in the 1860s did not permit immigration by blacks or, if they did, required them to post a $1,000 bond that would be confiscated if they behaved “improperly.” > > Senator Lyman Trimball of Illinois, a close confidant of Lincoln’s, stated that “our people want nothing to do with the Negro” and was a strong supporter of Illinois’ “black codes.” Northern newspapers were often just as racist as the Northern black codes were. The Philadelphia Daily News editorialized on November 22, 1860, that “the African is naturally the inferior race.” The Daily Chicago Times wrote on December 7, 1860, that “nothing but evil” has come from the idea of Abolition and urged everyone to return any escaped slave “to his master where he belongs.” > > On January 22, 1861, the New York Times announced that slavery would indeed be a “very tolerable system” if only slaves were allowed to legally marry, be taught to read, and to invest their savings. In short, the cartoonish notion that the Republican party was so incensed over racial discrimination in the South after the war that, in a fit of moral outrage, it trashed all constitutional precepts to dictatorially adopt the Fourteenth Amendment, should not be taken seriously. As Alexis de Tocqueville wrote in Democracy in America, it was obvious to all that racial prejudice was stronger in the North than it was in the South. “The prejudice of race,” wrote Tocqueville, “appears to be stronger in the states that have abolished slavery than in those where it still exists.” > > If the Republican party was so sensitive about racial discrimination in the post-war era it would not have sent General Sherman out west just three months after the war ended to commence a campaign of genocide against the Plains Indians. The very same army that had recently conquered and occupied the Southern states-led by Generals Grant, Sherman, and Sheridan-mass murdered Indian men, women, and children during the winters, when families would be together, with massive Gatling gun and artillery fire. In a letter to his son a year before he died (1889), Sherman expressed his regret that his armies did not murder every last Indian in North America. “Truth About the 14th Amendment” — Thomas J. DiLorenzo ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2005, 5:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/old-south-racism-alive-and-well-in-texas/307663/132 "2005-06-12T17:26:16Z")
Great cite, **Lib**. I’d advise northerners also to read up on the Black Irish riots of the nineteenth century in New York, in which Irish immigrants, infuriated at a white culture that equated them with being black, when on murderous rampages through black neighborhoods, slaughtering innocents, in what many believe was an effort to prove that the Irish were not themselves black. We all got something in our history to be ashamed of; and if we identify with our society, we all got plenty of racism in our current society to be ashamed of as well. Daniel ---
**Author:** ![Lamar\_Mundane](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/85f322/32.png) [@Lamar\_Mundane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lamar_Mundane)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2005, 6:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/old-south-racism-alive-and-well-in-texas/307663/133 "2005-06-12T18:38:13Z")
> [@Left Hand of Dorkness](#): > > Great cite, **Lib**. I’d advise northerners also to read up on the Black Irish riots of the nineteenth century in New York, in which Irish immigrants, infuriated at a white culture that equated them with being black, when on murderous rampages through black neighborhoods, slaughtering innocents, in what many believe was an effort to prove that the Irish were not themselves black. > > We all got something in our history to be ashamed of; and if we identify with our society, we all got plenty of racism in our current society to be ashamed of as well. > > Daniel What relevance do laws and incidents from 150 years ago have on this discussion? Nobody has claimed that there are no racists or bigots in the northern states, just that there is a more pervasive bigotry in the south. Sure, there are plces like northern Idaho and south Boston that are islands of racism, but in those places the word “nigger” is used as a racial slur, while in many parts of the south it is used in casual conversation. Try this thought experiment - imagine a week in Denver and count how many times you hear the word “nigger”. My guess is you won’t hear it at all. Imagine a week in Memphis or Shreveport or Birmingham. You’ll hear it at the 7-11, in a cab, at the hotel, etc. I don’t know why people have such a hard time accepting this. ---
**Author:** ![wonky](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wonky/32/393_2.png) [@wonky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wonky)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2005, 7:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/old-south-racism-alive-and-well-in-texas/307663/134 "2005-06-12T19:16:39Z")
> [@Lamar Mundane](#): > > Try this thought experiment - imagine a week in Denver and count how many times you hear the word “nigger”. My guess is you won’t hear it at all. Imagine a week in Memphis or Shreveport or Birmingham. You’ll hear it at the 7-11, in a cab, at the hotel, etc. I heard it for the first time in a loooong time yesterday. While I was in my backyard. One of my neighbors was screaming at one of his kids. Isn’t it a little odd for some moronic white guy to call his kid by a racial epithet? On the other hand, these people are so stupid I’m sure they can’t figure out the implications. ---
**Author:** ![Mockingbird](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/c68b51/32.png) [@Mockingbird](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mockingbird)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2005, 8:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/old-south-racism-alive-and-well-in-texas/307663/135 "2005-06-12T20:02:16Z")
> [@Nicodemus2004](#): > > Dear Dag, > Fuck you, you motherfucking fuck stick. It is you who are prejudice in buying into the ignorance and preconceived notions. You are too stupid and detestable to even debate. > And by the way, Fuck you, you ignorant fuck. Now, now. You just go back to disenfranchising black voters and keeping a man in office who was using dishonest means to try and keep a woman alive so he could remain in the good graces of his masters. See… those are preconcieved notions based on your geographic location. As I was told by many Floridians that Florida isn’t part of the South, I figured I should give you something authentic to get incoherently outraged over. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![EddyTeddyFreddy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eddyteddyfreddy/32/18796_2.png) [@EddyTeddyFreddy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EddyTeddyFreddy)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2005, 8:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/old-south-racism-alive-and-well-in-texas/307663/136 "2005-06-12T20:42:50Z")
> [@Lamar Mundane](#): > > Try this thought experiment - imagine a week in Denver and count how many times you hear the word “nigger”. My guess is you won’t hear it at all. Imagine a week in Memphis or Shreveport or Birmingham. You’ll hear it at the 7-11, in a cab, at the hotel, etc. I hear it a lot in Boston, but that’s because I’m often taking the subway when school’s let out and the kids are going home. The black kids use it to each other constantly. Used as an insult? Not very often. ---
**Author:** ![mhendo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mhendo/32/3159_2.png) [@mhendo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mhendo)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2005, 9:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/old-south-racism-alive-and-well-in-texas/307663/137 "2005-06-12T21:37:28Z")
I often read [this blog](http://standingonthebox.blogspot.com/) by a guy who’s a bouncer in a Manhattan nightclub. His club is frequented by a type of clientele that he refers to as “Guidos,” which seems to mean a largely Italian culture exemplified in its fashions and attitudes by the kids on the “Growing Up Gotti” TV show.\* Anyway, apparently the term “nigger” is a frequntly used epithet among this crowd. They use it to refer to one another in a sort of brotherly way, the way some African Americans do. E.g. “Yo, what’s up nigga!” But they also apparently use it in its more traditional, disparaging sense to refer to African Americans. \*It’s not really clear to me how offensive the term “guido” is generally thought to be, or whether these people use it among themselves. I’m sure someone more familiar with New York lingo can help me out here. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2005, 11:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/old-south-racism-alive-and-well-in-texas/307663/138 "2005-06-12T23:08:11Z")
> [@Lamar Mundane](#): > > Try this thought experiment - imagine a week in Denver and count how many times you hear the word “nigger”. My guess is you won’t hear it at all. Imagine a week in Memphis or Shreveport or Birmingham. You’ll hear it at the 7-11, in a cab, at the hotel, etc. I’ll try this experiment instead: in my last six years in the South (in Chapel Hill, Durham, Asheville, and travels around the region), I’ve heard the word zero times. Not once. Not on my travels in Georgia and Tennessee, not in the majority-black town of Durham, not from the low-income rural folks I deal with through my job. None of these places are Shreveport, but I don’t put much trust at all in this experiment of yours; instead, I think it reflects a prejudice, in the strictest sense of the word, on your part. Daniel ---
**Author:** ![Lamar\_Mundane](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/85f322/32.png) [@Lamar\_Mundane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lamar_Mundane)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2005, 11:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/old-south-racism-alive-and-well-in-texas/307663/139 "2005-06-12T23:55:53Z")
> [@Left Hand of Dorkness](#): > > I’ll try this experiment instead: in my last six years in the South (in Chapel Hill, Durham, Asheville, and travels around the region), I’ve heard the word zero times. Not once. Not on my travels in Georgia and Tennessee, not in the majority-black town of Durham, not from the low-income rural folks I deal with through my job. > > None of these places are Shreveport, but I don’t put much trust at all in this experiment of yours; instead, I think it reflects a prejudice, in the strictest sense of the word, on your part. > > Daniel No prejudice. I am relying entirely on first hand experiences. It seems odd that the experiences (not perceptions) of people vary so significantly. P.S. I don’t consider North Carolina part of the deep south. ---
**Author:** ![Nic2004](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/4491bb/32.png) [@Nic2004](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nic2004)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2005, 1:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/old-south-racism-alive-and-well-in-texas/307663/140 "2005-06-13T01:40:59Z")
> [@Mockingbird](#): > > Now, now. You just go back to disenfranchising black voters and keeping a man in office who was using dishonest means to try and keep a woman alive so he could remain in the good graces of his masters. > > See… those are preconcieved notions based on your geographic location. > > As I was told by many Floridians that Florida isn’t part of the South, I figured I should give you something authentic to get incoherently outraged over. > > 😃 Now, now **Mockingbird** , try to focus. The big people are trying to talk about _prejudice_. Say it with me **pre-ju-dice**. Not the Bush politics or the Terri Shivo debacle. I don’t believe I have ever disenfranchised black voters. Seems like I would remember something like that. You are, however, in keeping with the discussion in your statement: > [@](#): > > See… those are preconcieved notions based on your geographic location. That is an excellent example of the prejudice we are discussing. See, “preconcieved notions” is just a more palatable way of saying you are prejudice. Have you not read, or understood, the postings above talking about the extent of the problem in both the North and the South? Do you not comprehend the ignorance shown by the posting I railed against? This kind of back-of-a-cerealbox understanding of history and myopic buying into simplistic explanations of the events leading up to the Civil War only severs to show the causes of the problem at hand. The worst racists I have ever met were from one Northern state or another. And before you believe what “Floridians” think about their State, try to understand that having a Florida condo, drivers license or tag on your car doesn’t make you a Floridian. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/old-south-racism-alive-and-well-in-texas/307663.md?page=6) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/old-south-racism-alive-and-well-in-texas/307663.md?page=8)